OPTIMIZATION OF A CUTTING PROCESS FOR WIRE-ELECTRIC DISCHARGE MACHINING AT WELDING JOINT

Transcription

1 OPTIMIZATION OF A CUTTING PROCESS FOR WIRE-ELECTRIC DISCHARGE MACHINING AT WELDING JOINT F.R.M. Romlay Faculty of Mechanical Engineering Universiti Malaysia Pahang (UMP), P.O. Box 12, Kuantan Pahang, MALAYSIA. Phone: , Fax: , fadhlur@ump.edu.my A. Mokhtar Faculty of Mechanical Engineering Universiti Malaysia Pahang (UMP), P.O. Box 12, Kuantan Pahang, MALAYSIA. Phone: , Fax: , asmizam@ump.edu.my Abstract This paper presents optimization results of the wire-edm cutting parameter at welding joint area. The experiment is conducted during a gear shape optimization process by reducing the gear material and weight. Some area of the gear is welded for material joining process. The wire-edm cutting process is conducted by cutting at the single material and welding area. The parameters of cutting process such as wire speeds, wire tensions and wire voltage are considered to be optimized. The cutting condition at the single and double materials area is compared. The result of the experiment shows that the cutting speed of the wire-edm is affect by cutting parameters changing. Keywords: wire-edm, welding and non-conventional machining.

2 1. Introduction Recently, non-conventional machining is well established used by component manufacturer as a manufacturing method. Non-conventional is not involved with the high force, with out tool ware and the most things for the environment it is a green process. The process is not deal with the metal chip and only water is used as an electrode. Wire electrical discharge machining (wire-edm), EDM die sinking, water jet cutting and laser cutting are the most regularly used by the manufacturer. Wire-EDM as a precision cutting technology is possible to fabricate from a small range of product until a large size of component. All type of good conductivity metal such as mild steel and copper are possible to be cut using wire-edm. However, machine setting varies for each type of metals. So, certain parameters need to be clearly defined for each of materials. In wire-edm, to cut two types of material in one time or parallel cutting is a big challenge. Machine setting for both of the materials need to be considered and optimized. Beside that, the machine setting is also base on the curve or profile to be cut. The setting is easy tuned for a straight line and become more difficult for the curve or part which is involving an angle. Limitation of cutting speed is applied by Sanchez et. al. (2007) in order to minimize the errors at different zones of the corner. Ninety degree angle is the most difficult section to be cut by wire-edm because of the dramatically direction changing. 2. Literature Review Usually, combination more than one material is found in the joint segment for example welding process. Two materials are melting together in order to joint the part of the component. Materials combination which is involved with the thermal energy is very strong joining because of the physical changing and chemical reaction between of the materials. The chemical reaction will give the totally new molecule structure which is stronger than the original structure. Joining material which is called as electrode must be same type with the work piece. However, the material grade of the electrode and mild steel is possible to be different. The welding process will perform a rough surface and sometimes not a high density material content because of the material filling technique. A novel simulation method for wire-edm in corner cut of rough cutting was introduced by Fuzhu et. el. (2007). Due to the rough surface, cutting process at the welded area is very tough when involve with the vibration factor. Obara et. al. (1998) and Han et. al. (2005) were conducted a simulation to analyze the vibration problem by predicting the discharge locations. Using wire-edm, the cutting for combine materials need a lot of parameter changing compare to the single material cutting process. The parameters that need to be seriously considered are wire tension and wire speed. Wire tension is important to be adjusting to avoid the wire stress over the limit. Below are the fundamental of stress applied at the wire during the cutting process. (1) (2)

3 where n is the number of applied load histories and? xi (t)? yi (t)? xyi (t) are the stress due to a unit load. The stress is applied at a specific nodal and a same direction with the load history F i (t). In this condition, the analysis is chosen just for a certain moment from the whole mechanism. The equation that involve with the wire tension, T is expressed in a steady state condition as follow which x(z) and y(z) are the displacement of the wire in the x and y directions. (3) (1) Reaction force of the wire can be modeled as follows: (2) (3) Where a is the distance between the upper side of the workpiece and the upper wire guide, b the distance between the lower side of the workpiece and the upper wire guide, H(*) the step function, and W x and W y are the reaction force of the unit length in the x and y direction, respectively. (4) 3.0 Experiment Methodology The wire-edm experiment is conducted for gear shape optimization by reducing the material and weight of the gear. The area between the gear teeth and shaft is removed as much as possible. At challenge is come from the welding section as shown in Fig Workpiece Geometry

4 Fig. 1 The welding section on the mild steel gear Fig. 2 Side view of the gear component. The thickness of the gear as shown in Fig. 2 is 10 mm with the pitch diameter, d mm. Number of teeth, N is 39 to have a module, m which is 3.5 mm. The welding section is existed because of the material added process in order to reuse the gear by changing the gear shaft. The joining process comes out with four sections of welding area. This is the tough part of the cutting process by using EDM wire cut. 2. Machine and Wire Electrode Properties The wire-edm machine used in this study was Sodick model. The wire electrode was KH Sodick with 0.5mm in diameter which is made from Cu-35wt%Zn. 4. Result of wire-edm cutting for single and double material The disadvantage of wire-edm is it a slow cutting process. During the cutting process, the cutting time is very critical to be considered. The cutting parameters were optimized to perform a short period of cutting (4)

5 process. A small changing in cutting parameter can give a big effect to the cutting time. The results of the parameters considered are shown in the Table 1 below: Table 1 Differentiates of wire-edm cutting parameters between single and double material cutting process. Parameter Single Double Differen material material t cutting cutting (+/-) Wire speeds Wire Tensions Wire Voltage Cutting speed Fig. 3 The end shape after wire-edm cutting process Fig. 4 The finish result of the gear shape optimization The cutting process is successful and really followed the shape that was suggests to be removed as shown in Fig. 3 and Fig. 4. The cutting edge is very smooth even at welding section.

6 5. Conclusions The result of the analysis has shown that the factor of wire speeds, wire tensions and wire voltage will affect the wire-edm cutting process and cutting time. The material properties also give a big impact to the cutting process methodology. Double materials content must have a cutting parameter review to optimize the cutting process and cutting time. Vibration of the wire-edm process is also affected by workpiece surface roughness. Over tension of the wire electrode can made the wire cut and fail. References [1] J. A. Shanchez, J. L. Rodil, A. Herrero, L. N. Lopez de Lacalle & A. Lamikiz, On the influence of cutting speed limitation on the accuracy of wire-edm corner-cutting, Journal of Materials Processing Technology 182 (2007) [2] Fuzhu Han, Jie Zhang & Isago Soichiro, Corner Error simulation of rough cutting in wire EDM, Precision Engineering 31 (2007) [3] Obara H, Ishizu T, Ohsumi T, Iwata Y., Simulation of wire EDM. ISEM-12 (1998) [4] Han F, Kunieda M, Sendai T, Imai Y. simulation of WEDM using discharge location searching algorithm, initiatives of precision engineering at the beginning of the millennium. Kluwer Academic Publishers; (2001) Welding joining Mild Steel Gear